Spicy Chicken Burrito = Amazing

In a little over 24 hours, I will be 22.
In a little over 4 weeks, I will be a UNCW alumni.

In American Romanticism, we're being made to read Moby Dick. Now, any of you that have seen Moby Dick know that it's a rather large book and I'm having a slow go of it trying to through. Yesterday I went to the library to try and isolate myself and get some good time in. I read for two hours, in one of the first chapters I read, Ishmael and his companion stop by an Inn on Nantucket and are treated to some of the most delicious sounding Clam and Cod chowder ever. Suddenly, this boring soup that I've taken for granted for so long came to life for me. This wasn't something that Campbells canned and forgot about - this was a soup RICH in cultural heritage, the stuff of hardened sea captains and salty harpooneers. It is something that people took great pride in.

Subsequently, I became very hungry. After I was done reading I went to the grocery store, bought one can of clam chowder, went back to my apartment and ate it. I've never appreciated a soup so much in my life.

Random fact: I didn't know what Deli was short for until two years ago

Then Steve Danced His Way to Freedom

An Open letter to Hottie McCoffee-Pants:

Dear Hottie McCoffee-Pants,

You probably know me as the guy that occasionally comes in and gets a deli sandwich to-go and pays with food dollars on my student ID card. I know I've never asked you for anything aside from an oversized cookie from the baked goods shelf before, but today my request is more personal. All year I have been treated to your unassumingly gorgeous face when I go to get lunch. All year you have been totally unaware of my feelings for you. I would have told you earlier, but one day last fall, you were making a mixed coffee beverage for another customer and you let it slip in conversation with a colleague that you were engaged to be married. I instantly felt that my chances at procuring a date with you were lost. Never again would I enter the coffee shop with the feelings of excitement that I once had. Now I thought all hope was lost.

BUT THAT HAS CHANGED. I had an epiphany! I should just tell you what I have felt so you can just know that I am the one for you. So here it goes.

Hottie McCoffee-Pants, I know you are currently in love with another man to the point that you wouldn't mind spending the rest of your life with him, but is that really what you want? Wouldn't you always wonder if you weren't really supposed to be with that guy that didn't ask for a pickle and rarely bought beverages to go with his sandwiches? In 20 years, what will plague your mind? Will it be thoughts of your job or your kid's futures, or will it be how different your life could be if you'd just dismissed your fiancé with no explanation and gone with me to Carabbas, my treat? I know it sounds crazy but I think I represent something for you. I think I have something to offer - a way out. The chance to keep the ball rolling and start again.

I'm relatively sure you wouldn't regret it. Please let me know.

Respectfully,
---

MySpace Blog

I just wrote a rather insightful post on my myspace blog. Since it is intended for a myspace audience, I'll just direct you over there rather than copying it here.
Myspace Blog

Cheers!

Data Entry Specialist

Yesterday I got "fitted" for my cap and gown. I put "fitted" in quotation marks because the only question they ask you is how tall you are. Comforting. Gowns are now one-size-fits-all pieces of silky fabric. Graduation gowns are like higher-class ponchos that are only useful for one day. I think that schools should lessen the pomp in graduation ceremonies and give graduating students authentic, colorful ponchos that might actually be of some use after commencement. Imagine a ceremony where the esteemed scholars look a little less like esteemed scholers and a little more like a crowd of vacant-minded wanderers at a flea market.
They didn't even bother to take my cap size, so I guess they're taking advantage of the magic of elastic bands. This means that 50% of the graduates will be comfortable during the ceremony, and 50% will feel their heart beating at their temples for 45 minutes. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, maybe I have the ideal collegiate head.

Etamology of the word "Tidal." Al was the god of keeping the water at a particular point. When Jupiter tied Al up for attempted theft of Mercury's winged sandles, they began to change. Thus, tidal patterns.

Sobriety Test for School

When in the seat of a nation...

So, I was on my way to D.C. a few days ago (awesome trip, btw) and I get a call from my friend Matt while I'm still on the train.

"Dude, I've got to tell you what happened to me this afternoon because its too funny," he said.

"Ok," I said, "go for it."

"Ok, I went to McDonalds at work today to pick some food for Boone and the funny thing about the McDonald's drive through in Benson is that if you tune it to 101.5, you can hear the conversations between the person taking the order and the customer."

"Wait," I said, "So you can just tune in a listen to what they're saying?"

"Yeah"

"How did you figure this out?" I asked.

"Oh, I've known about it for years," he said, "sometimes it comes through so clear you can hear what other people are saying inside the McDonalds.

"Wow, that's special."

"Yeah," he continued, "so I was in line and I hear this black dude come on to place his order and he does it just like this: (yelling) I want a double cheeseburger, no pickles, no onions - this is how it's goin' down!"

I laughed

"Yeah, man," he said, "he did NOT want his order wrong."

...

I don't think print does this story justice, but trust me, it was funny.

Silk worms are the most glamorous of all the worms.

A Vegetarian Who Dreams in Hamburgers

A great escape.

In response to my last ridiculously long post I thought I might lighten things up with a briefer one. I'm planning on leaving the great town of wilmington tomorrow night and heaving-ho for new territory for spring break. Friday morning me and Jeff will leave my house and head out to Raleigh where will we catch an Amtrak train to Washington DC. There we will stay for 3 nights in a Double Tree hotel - taking in the sights and sounds of our nations' capital. On the third of March we'll take our return train home. At this point about 80% of my trip money will be spent, but only about 30% of our spring break antics will have happened. We'll wake up early on the 4th and head down I-95 to Charleston, SC, stopping only briefly for a break in-between at South of the Border. After a day in SC's only legitimatly cool city, we'll head back north through Myrtle Beach (beat up Las Vegas) and stay the night in Wilmington. On the morning of the 5th there is a very good chance that we'll pick up a new companion, Jacob, and head north up the coast to the oldest town in NC, Bath. We'll spend the night there at Jeff's place, then wake up early on the 6th and take the ferry over to Oakcracoke Island. We'll spend the rest of the day on either Oakcracoke or Hatteras, then spend the night at a campground in our tent. Then next morning (the 7th) we'll head up to Kitty Hawk and possibly the Great Dismal Swamp. After that fun-filled day it will be back south to Bath where we'll spend another night before heading for Wilmington and the end of our spring break antics on the 8th.

Ok, get this. I have about $130 (after the cost of the train and the hotel) to get them through this entire week. Anything that costs money like sights in DC, South of the Border, DC Metro rides, ect. has to be balanced between needing to feed myself at least twice a day. Add to that the fact that I'd really like to buy some pack film for my camera and you have a pretty crazy situation. I don't really care, I'd go hungry for a couple of days to experience a week like this where I really don't have to worry about anything but having fun. I think it's going to be great. The best part is I'm taking a paper journal with me so I'm going to have it all recorded and I'll be sure to post some stuff here when I get back.

Arrivederci!

The Tyrant King and the Princess of Easy-listening

In the den of the godless heathens

This has been a busy, but very interesting week. Every day it has been cold, the way it should be in February, and I have had to deal with going from freezing cold to "surface of the sun" every time I walk into a building on campus. I immediately strip off my coat and/or sweaters because it's so hot in there, I'll pass out if I don't. I have a theory about the school's central heating system. I think they have a dragon that they hit with a mallet to induce fire-breathing and warm the campus. I bet he's a pretty grumpy fellow.

Speaking of fire breathing, that leads me to my next topic - kind of. Before I get to that I must first go back to Thursday. I was walking though campus commons with a couple of friends before my 12:30 class and in the middle of the commons in a big circle were some protesters who were saving the campus trees. Apparently UNCW has decided to cut out a large swath of our campus' 200 acre pine forest to put up a parking garage and new dorm. UNCW is host to the largest patch of pine forest still standing in the city of Wilmington. Naturally, the hippies are upset. Well, I heard that they were cutting almost all of them down, which irritated me, so when my friend suggested we join them, I thought - what the heck.

Let me just say it right now - it feels really great to walk up to a group of protesters and hear their cheers and cries of support as you join their feeble but growing cause. I can honestly say that I now understand why so many people make it their life's work to be activists for so many different causes. In a moment I felt like a stately lion that would devour the jackal of corporate school government. I felt the swelling of my pride - pride that I was one of the few that cared enough to stand for such a noble cause. More than anything, I felt like I really mattered to someone.

It may have been 15 seconds after I sat down, 30 at the most, when I realized that I had made a terrible mistake.

"HAVING CLASS IS NO EXCUSE FOR MISSING A WALK-OUT! JOIN OUR PEACEFUL PROTEST," said the red-bearded fellow who was apparently in charge of everything, "GOING TO CLASS DEFEATS THE PURPOSE, THIS IS A WALK-OUT!"

"Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap!" is all that ran through my head. I had 20 minutes before my American Romanticism class started and there was a paper due in it. There was no way I was skipping that class to shout crudely at passers-by in support of the UNCW forest people. Suddenly, all those feelings of pride, self congratulation, and acceptance came flooding back on me in the horrifying light of knowing I was going to have to stand up and very obviously walk away from all of them in a matter of minutes. The red-bearded fellow kept repeating himself, and every time he said his bit I felt a little queasier. I didn't know how I was going to survive walking away to the jeering and social ridicule that I was sure to get. I had become the protester's arch-nemesis. I was the protester light.

I rocked back and forth like a crazy person as I devised a plan for leaving that involved waiting until someone coughed loudly and tearing off to the southeast. This, I decided, would be a fruitless effort since we were sitting in a circle and some of them would see me no matter what. At some point a funky looking girl with a scarf on her head came over to my friend and I with a piece of art paper paper and some oil paints. On the paper people had already painted several trees.

"We're painting a forest to show the school," she said with a smile, "you can paint a tree and then just pass it around."

I waited as my friend painted her tree. All around me the circle erupted into the chant, "Ain't no power like the power of the people, 'cause the power of the people don't stop (say what?)." They switched between that one and my preferred chant, "Save our trees!"

I wish more of my friends and family could have been there. It was wonderful - I was completely out of my element and I was totally cool with it (aside from the whole having to betray them within 15 minutes part). I lifted my voice and clapped my hands and let the world know that we were serious. I painted a colorful little tree on the paper and thought about how these people were an impassioned group of people that I had spent my entire life boxing up - never dealing with. As a general rule, protesters had annoyed me. I thought of them as whiners for the sake of whining and now I was adding my personal touch to their fruity little painting. I was planting my tree in their forest. Who knew?

Walking out on a walk-out is a pretty miserable experience - I wouldn't recommend it. They turned out to be more lenient than I had imagined. The only thing I heard as I walked away was, "You're scaring them away, dude," which I assume was addressed to the red-bearded fellow. Yeah, I left, but it wasn't out of fear of anything other than failing a paper that I had worked my butt off on.

Now let's jump to last night. I'm in a senior seminar class for film where our one project for the entire semester is to film a documentary on something. My group chose this odd place in Wilmington that all of us had been to a few times, but none of us really understood. It's a hookah bar (hookahs are the weird pipes that the caterpillar smoked in Alice in Wonderland) on Castle street. The place is, quite literally, nuts. There are fire-eaters, poets, comedians, dancers, any just about anyone else you might imagine. The decor is all homemade art and found furniture that has been redecorated to suit their purposes. They serve food, but until yesterday I had never tried it, (I recommend "The Beast" grilled pita, because it's delicious). The people who work there are varied and interesting. They sometimes wear funky hats, always wear funky cloths and they all have nicknames that sound like comic book villains. One day the manager was wearing a confederate civil war jacket - now that's what I call projecting an effective middle-management image. When you first come into that place, if you're like me, you wonder how long you're going to last with the weirdoes in there. In the process of making this film, however, I've found them to be some of the coolest and nicest people I've met in Wilmington. They're all about the arts and it seems like one of their biggest missions is to give an outlet to anyone who does anything, and I do mean ANYTHING. While we were interviewing the owners we caught wind of a bellydancing showcase that was going to happen, and thats why we showed up last night with our camera.

We got the equipment set up and, little by little, the tiny cafe filled to capacity. Old people, young people, people in polos and people in purple sport coats with berets. In my comfortable little Bible-belt life, I've scarcely been exposed to such diversity, and certainly not all in one place. Techno middle-eastern music blasted through the place, filling it with a type of energy you almost have to feel to understand. The only light in the whole place came from dim can lights at the front and decorative hanging lamps the were almost randomly scattered throughout the bar area. I watched from my high up perch on a homemade seating platforms as the shadowy mass of a group of marines melded into a mass of middle-aged hipsters behind them, which melded into the rest of the crowd seamlessly. It was really strangely beautiful.

The belly dancers came out one by one, each performing to their own song and clothed in traditional belly dance garb. It was pretty amazing to watch. One of the owners was dancing and she balanced a saber on her head while spinning around, tell me that isn't impressive. My favorite part was when they introduced the live middle-eastern drum team and let them go crazy until the dancers came out with finger symbols. You can't even begin to imagine how cool it sounded and looked. They finished their set, we took down our equipment, and off we went.

On the way home I kept thinking about how I felt about the place the first time I came there. It's curiously located away from downtown in the middle of a low-rent, mostly African-American neighborhood. As a middle-class white kid from the whitest school in the southeast, I was a bit shook up about going there. I imagined all sorts of scenarios involving guns and dead comic book villains and stolen hookahs. I remember thinking the place looked dirty and poorly put together. Of course, the biggest thing I remember was thinking about how much I didn't fit in - how this was a place for the strange and outcast and I traveled through it like a preppy tourist at a freak-show theme park. Soon I could tell all of my preppy friends about it and sound cultured and cool. I don't belong here - really? Then, where do I belong?

Well, from what I've been taught I must belong in a white, middle-class neighborhood about 4 blocks from the school and 2 blocks from the church. I should have 2.5 kids and eat breakfast with them before I head out to work. My wife will take them to school in the SUV and before she comes back home to her interior decorating business and I work a 9-5 to pay the bills. We all put in our time where its needed in a safe and productive and comfortable manner. This includes God, you know. We put in our time with God like we put in our time at the office. An hour on Sunday, and hour and a half on Wednesday, maybe another hour at small group and, what the heck, throw in 30 minutes of "quiet time" each day. This makes a well-balanced life of ... well, it makes a well balanced life of mediocrity.

Do we really believe that Christ called us to be comfortable and safe in our suburban holes? I know this isn't a new idea to any of you that have been in Church or gone on fabulous campus ministry retreats at camps. This is something that we talk about but that we so rarely take the opportunities to experience. Not even our mission trips really provide up with a opportunity to broaden our horizons much because we make them trips, not lifestyles. There is spiritual warfare out there - in our towns - and we should be in the middle of it, fighting for the cause of Christ. We have an obligation to love and serve everyone, everywhere, regardless of our comfort level in their presence. Truth be told, I feel more comfortable stretching my horizons with new people than sitting in my apartment with CCF buddies because if I sit stagnant long enough, I feel useless.

I thought about this and how the people I've been with this week are the so-called "enemies of the gospel." The hippies that fight for free love and dirty drugs and life experience and the freaks of the gutters, the people who band together in certain spots to feel that they fit in with someone. These aren't our enemies. Their lifestyles can't do anything to us that we don't let them do. These are our friends that we've been neglecting. Even if we never get the chance to have that amazing spiritual dialogue that could prove life-altering, these are the people that Jesus talked about being there for. The people we're supposed to listen to and understand and love - the people that we've been told for so long are our enemies.

When I think about how I would have missed that belly dancing show, I get pretty sad. I don't get sad because the show was awesome (even though it was) but what really sucks is the reason I would have missed it. If I hadn't had that project I would have had plenty of reasons for dismissing it and missed out on that beautiful little nugget of life and on meeting those people because of my fear and discomfort with the area. I still have a long way to go because the Juggling Gypsy and the tree people are both tame compared to the worlds real challenges, but I hope this is a start for me in the right direction that keeps on rolling.

So that was my week. Pretty productive and pretty fun. Next week I'm going to DC!

Dictionary, Dictionary

I'm tired.

I bought a new sleeping bag for the trip to Camp Dixie this weekend. This sleeping bag is amazing. It's rated to 0 degrees and it's a mummy bag. I doubt that I'll ever be out in the wild in 0 degrees, but it's still nice to know you have the safety net just in case. I have discovered that there are few better feelings in life that cuddling up in a warm sleeping bag when it's cold all around you. I'd almost go camping for that feeling - when you first get in the bag and shiver a few times and you feel the heat getting trapped as you generate it.

I'm not psychotic, I promise.

Also, this weekend, I had an epiphany. I'm not talking about a "marketable new manifestation of cheese" type of epiphany, more like a spiritual epiphany. See, when I go to church or talk about church in any kind of group setting, I always get this feeling like something just isn't settling right. I know that the gears in my head have been turning, but I've never really let them turn before. Well, after one of our breakout sessions, I grabbed a notebook and went off on it. I don't know if I really figured anything out, but it sure feels like I did, so I'm going to just assume that I'm a genius.

Actually, it was really good stuff (in my biased opinion), stuff that people needed to hear because I'm sure almost every Christian would agree with me. I could write a book about it and get some charismatic person to lead a movement and RAH RAH RAH! But then I realized that I had to check some sources and read up on it a little more. Turns out that there is a book that looks like it's pretty much about what I was thinking. It's called Irresistible Revolution and it's on my short list of books to read. I'll let you guys know what I think of it when I'm done.

I had a conversation this weekend with a couple of random girls about why I wore shower shoes at places like that to avoid getting foot fungus. Of course, I forgot my shower shoes, and the next day after my shower I started thinking about it. Now I'm laying in my bed typing and as I do so, my left big toe is itching. Gulp.

Maybe I am crazy.

Falsehoods and Fiberboard

Out of Gas.

I think I owe you an apology. No, this isn't a directed post to that guy that I kind of slammed the door into at Morton the other day, although if you're reading this, dude, I'm sorry. No, I owe this blog an apology. I don't know what's gotten into me - like an overconfident band with a hit first album and a series of follow-up-flops, I've just been giving my sub-par ideas the stage for a really long time. So, I'm pretty sure I've made it a habit to say something every few posts about how crappy my writing has gotten but this post isn't to apologize and keep on moving, same as always. This time I think I've found a solution, let me break it down for you.

I think every creative endeavor needs a driving force. When I first started this blog my writing had a spark like a crunched Wint-O-Green lifesaver in pitch darkness (yes, they spark, please try it for yourself). The force that drove that spark in my writing was being in a new place with new people all around me and experiencing new things. I didn't think twice about putting everything out there and a lot of it, though poorly written as far as spelling and grammar, was really just cool. I didn't care, it had spirit even if it was dumb.

I guess what I'm saying is there is this intangible something that is just there, and you can feel it there when you're writing and when you're reading someone else's stuff. It's there in music and paintings and all other creative endeavors, I don't know how to describe it other than the spark of life to the piece. So here is how I'm getting it back. I have a friend who is also a writer and just like C.S. Lewis had his J.R.R. Tolkien, we're going to use each other to push our way into inspiration. Well, thats the plan anyway. Hopefully this will prove to be the way to a fuel up.

Something smells like burnt hair.

Lovely Day...

Allergies...who needs 'em?

Can I just say I have the most confusing semester for learning professor names ever? I have three professors in a row on Tuesday's and Thursday's...their names? Bushman, Berman, Boren. I constantly forget which one I'm dealing with at any particular moment. I'm in Berman (david)'s class right now and since I just finished putting together a lovely pointless excel spreadsheet for my project grade, I'm killing some time. It looks like he's wandering around a bit so I'm going to make this a very brief rant.

Solidarity, my allergic brothers and sisters! I never had much problem with my allergies until I was a teenager. Around that time, dogs and cats really made me sneezy and teary eyed. It wasn't that bad, I still forced my way through it for the benefit of petting fuzzy animals, but here lately it's getting ridiculous. I can scarce spend 20 minutes in my friend Jacob's house without his cat, Ninja, causing me to tear up a bit. Add to that the fact that Ninja is FLIPPIN' CRAZY and claws you without warning and I start developing big swollen welts at the sight of claw infliction. After all I've done to be supportive to cats...thats the thanks I get.
So all this culminates in a trip to a friends apartment two weeks ago. I hadn't seen these two people in years, so it wasn't at all a "formal" meeting, but I couldn't exactly be 100% my normal self because most of the evening was spent catching up on the past 3 years. Well, to make a long story short, they order a pizza about the same time I feel my throat closing up. Naturally, having never experienced this before, I began to panic slightly. Being the moron that I can occasionally be, instead of excusing myself immediately, I decided to just hang out and wait for the pizza. Let me tell you, if that pizza had been any less greasy, there is no way it would have made it down my nearly asphyxiated esophagus. Finally, I decided I could take no more and excused myself at the same time another old friend showed up - thereby giving them a complex, no doubt.

I love the kitties, but my autoimmune system sure don't.